Science fiction – getting your world in order
by
John Hudspith
How often do you put a book down simply because the writer
has failed to coerce you into suspending belief and accepting his alternate
reality?
Creating a sci-fi world, be it a full blown otherworld with
all the bells and whistles, designed to suspend reader in a depth of
all-encompassing fiction, or a mild shot of dystopia delivered with minimalist
subtleness intent on merely supporting the story, or somewhere in the middle of
these two extremes, one thing is certain: there are a few key ingredients to
use when cooking your creation. Okay, thinking about it, there’s more than a
few - choices are infinite. Cooking up real deal fictional physics intent on
creating a believable world boils down to three main ingredients.
Passion + Belief +
Integrity
Take one hefty dose of Passion, mix with very Strong Belief,
add unbridled integrity, and stir until the cows come home.
If writing flying cars into your world, then you will do a
better job if you’re keen on cars. If your passion is driving, pimping your
ride, then the fictional flying cars you create will no doubt be something
special.
If your dystopia has elements of warfare, and it just so
happens that you are gun nut, or a marine/policeman/soldier then the
soldiers/policemen/weapons you create will surely be something special.
That old writers’ adage: `write what you know` is an adage for a reason.
I’d like to add another: `write what is you`
In my case, for the creation of Kimi’s Secret it was: Aliens, ghosts and magic.
These are the things that tortured my youth with bafflement,
worked their way into my bones and have held me ever since.
Spielberg wowed me with Close
Encounters of the Third Kind around the same time as my mother had us spellbound
with tales of spirit forms, and around the same time the news was buzzing with
young girls being flung around by poltergeists, Uri Geller bending spoons, and
thousands of people throwing themselves into frenzies at PK (psychokinetic)
parties.
Never a believer, always the sceptic, hoping to witness the
evidence that would prove little grey men were real, that ghosts were indeed
some manifestation of human energy, and that we humans could really defy the
laws of physics and move objects just by thinking about it.
